TMNT Amazing Adventures # 2

By Mark Rodriguez

The Turtles face a new Zodiac themed villain that has captured mutants based on the signs of the Chinese Zodiac including Rahzar as the wolf, Leatherhead as the dragon, Bebop as the boar and even Splinter as the rat. This forces the Turtles to work alongside the Shredder if they are to take this guy down. What will happen now?

The comic opens with the Turtles being surprised that Splinter is under Zodiac's control. Shredder tries to attack him, but Zodiac vanishes in a puff of smoke with his newfound minions. Moments later, they ask Shredder about Zodiac. Shredder explains that he was a normal guy named Tetsumi Onamota which was a good friend of both Yoshi and Saki. He found an artifact called the Zodiac Key that gave him the powers of the zodiac but it drove him mad with power. Yoshi and Saki teamed up to defeat him, or so they thought. Mikey asks if they're supposed to team up with the Shredder, but Shredder decides to rescue Karai on his own and sends a group of Foot-bots after the Turtles.

Splinter wakes up and Zodiac blames him for stopping from getting the power he wanted, which trapped him in his animal form. The Zodiac Key's power is unlocking and Zodiac mutates into an animal form that is a mix of all the Zodiac animals into one.

The Turtles fight the Foot-Bots while they know that Shredder has bought himself a head start. Don says he planted a tracker on Shredder though even if they find him, they'll be outnumbered. Leo says maybe not, and they have Don lead the way while they purposely let the Foot-Bots follow them.

Splinter is able to fight against Zodiac's mind control, but he enlists on the other captured mutants to help. Shredder arrives wanting to claim the Zodiac Key as his own. While both villains argue over it, Splinter flicks his tail, knocking the Key out of Zodiac's grasp. As Shredder and Zodiac try to get it, the Turtles bust in and start fighting. Don sees that the Key was actually build using Kraang tech, but Bebop smacks him. Raph manages to catch it, but Leatherhead attacks him too.

Splinter catches it and says both Shredder and Zodiac are unworthy of this power and breaks it in half. Zodiac says that without the key, his power will be out of control. Shredder grabs both pieces of the Key and claims its power. Don says the tracker he put on Shredder was also explosive, and he sets it off. The explosion destroys the Key further. Everyone is now back to order. Shredder tells Rahzar and Tiger Claw to grab Karai and they all vanish together.

The Turtles see that all that was left of Zodiac is now dust, since his life force was used up the Zodiac Key. Back at the lair Don wonders what Kraang tech was doing back in the day. Splinter feels bad that Tetsumi was once a good guy before he was consumed with power. Mikey says he's gone, but Splinter says he's not sure since they thought he was gone once before and thinks he will return someday.

Back up Story-

Mikey is bored and has nothing to do, until Splinter suggests he draw his own comic, since he loves comics so much. Mikey gets get to, and after a bit of writer's block, decides to make it about himself and the guys.

In the comic, Donnie wakes Mikey up after getting blasted. He remembers that they were on a rooftop watching over a nearby concert.... until Mikey accidentaly knocks over a Groundchuck Energy Drink water tower, spilling the liquid onto the people below. The Turtles go down to the street and see that a lot of the Kraang were at the concert. They have laser guns and as the Turtles dodge the shots, Mikey jumps on a stack of the energy drinks and smashes them with his nunchucks. The cans explode all over the Turtles, which leads to the cans exploding and gushing the contents all over the Kraang. Mikey falls backwards which leads to him getting knocked out, and Donnie helping him back up. The Turtles drive off in the Party Wagon eating pizza as he mentions how glad he is that his brothers accept him for the party dude that he is.

As Mikey finishes his comic, the others check it out. Don is impressed by the artwork and Leo calls Splinter so he can check it out. Splinter is impressed and mentions the comic has the kind of energy and artwork like the gag manga he read as a child. The Turtles decide to head out, hoping they don't run into the same kind of adventures as in the comic, though Raph says he'd die laughing if they actually did find the Kraang partying. Donnie suggests pizza would help inspire more adventures. As they head off, Splinter puts the 'Party Dude Vol 1' comic next to his family portrait.

My Opinions

It's a pretty cool issue. The Zodiac story was ok, and the whole 'using the mutant characters as stand-ins for the Zodiac animals' idea was a great way to show off some of the newer characters into this series. I do like that true to his character, Shredder had no interest in the traditional 'good guys team up with bad guys to face a bigger threat' deal and still sent Foot Ninja after the Turtles while he tried to deal with the villain himself. Not only that, but he wanted the powers of the Zodiac for himself, still making him a big threat in the story. It's too bad the story had to be condensed, with so many characters running around, we could have used 2 more pages worth of fighting. I also liked the flashback when Splinter and Shredder were still friends before they went their own ways.

Considering we had the Turtles, Splinter, Leatherhead, Bebop, Karai, Rahzar, Zodiac and Foot Robots, we needed at least 2 more pages of this.

As for the backup story, it was cute. I mostly liked that the others liked Mikey's comic too and showed their support. As much as I hate Mikey's lack of intelligence in the new show, I like that despite being an annoyance and a screw-up, the Turtles still care about their little brother. I also see that these back-ups are usually drawn by guest artists, and I see this artist drew the portion of Mikey's comic. And yes, Groundchuck reference in the comic. From being an evil mutant bull to somehow having his own line of Red Bull knockoffs, it was a clever sight gag.

My drink gives you wings!!!!

The only thing that gets me is, if Mikey fell off the pile of soda cans and I guess... got knocked out from it, why did he think he was blasted in the beginning? Oh well. In all cases, it is Mikey's comic so we can personally blame him for that one.

Overall a good story, though it's not really clear how far they're going with this 'follow it's own route' thing this new series is supposed to do when compared to the one before it. Of course we're never going to see Zodiac in the cartoon, maybe he can be a recurring a villain, if he finds some way to come back that is.